Hourglass
by Hella
Summary: Loki always was quick to catch onto a lie. In which Tony's palladium poisoning doesn't occur until after the events of The Avengers.


**Hourglass**

**By Hella**

* * *

"Well, the cat's out of the bag now, right?" Tony said. His chest prickled in the cool air of the workshop. "Not quite what I was planning on, but I guess you knew that." His mouth curved up, but there was no comfort in his smile. It was just an old reflex, and no comfort for the one standing before him.

Loki didn't do comfort, anyway. In fact, he really didn't react to the confession at all, which Tony was sure he was grateful for under his numbness and defeat. No, he just stared, green eyes slightly wider than Tony had seen for a while, but that was all.

The tainted latticework of palladium crawling out from Tony's arc reactor seemed to have him entranced.

Loki had almost figured it out himself by the time Tony gave up on the deception. Maybe he hadn't known exactly what was causing it, but when Tony had started turning away from him, drawing back and spending his days and nights in the workshop, running numbers and probability scenarios until he passed out...it had become pretty clear. There were only a few things that would cause Tony Stark to start dodging Loki Laufeyson like his life depended on it, these days.

"The core is degenerating," Tony started to explain, not sure why he felt like he needed to fill that silence. "Palladium poisoning, it's-"

"How long until this kills you?" The question was cold, each word clipped. Tony blinked, letting his shirt fall back down into place.

"Jarvis tells me it'll be another ten days, maybe eight if I'm not careful." He paused, adding, "it should be quick, you know; once it reaches my brain it should be all over within a few hours. Massive organ failure should follow just after I lose consciousness. It's not going to be pretty, but it won't drag out."

Loki nodded curtly. "And you were not going to tell me."

"There didn't seem much point." Better to have his friends and...Loki, treat him as they always have. Infirmity wasn't befitting a Stark. And if he avoided having to see the horror and grief in the faces of the handful of people he cared about, well. Bonus.

Now there was a shadow in Loki's eyes, and a tremble of something terrible gathering in the pale curve of his mouth.

"Did you think you could not ask for my aid?" The words were forced out of him, sounding grated and rusty. "Did you think I would not give it?_"_

Tony held his hands up, shaking his head. This was what he'd been trying to avoid. But the best laid plans, and all that.

"It's not that I-there's nothing you _can_ do. It's already over, Loki."

"You doubt my powers?" Loki hissed. In the cool light of his workshop his eyes looked almost over-bright. "Do you have any idea what I _am?_"

Tony knew exactly what he was, maybe even better than Loki himself did these days. It had been a long time since they were enemies, but they'd always danced to a strange song. They'd known from the start that when it went up in smoke there was going to be devastating fallout.

"The arc reactor powers the magnet that holds back the shrapnel around my heart. Without it, I die. The arc reactor's palladium core is poisoning me. _With_ it, I die." Tony's mouth kicked up slightly as Loki's fury only seemed to build. "There's nothing that can replace the core. I've looked."

Loki wasn't having any of that. Striding forward, crowding Tony back against the worktable, he reached out and tore his shirt apart, again exposing the dark tracery fanning out from the reactor's glow. The blue light reflected in his eyes as Loki put cool palms to the hot and tender seam where metal met flesh, and the verdant glow of his magic poured into Tony's veins.

It always felt like ice to him, that magic. Part of his brain still wanted to argue that it was only science, but Tony had always been reluctant to pull apart Loki's inner workings, to unravel his secrets and lay all mystery bare. But when Loki breathed out in a shuddering rush and the threads of power pulled back, when he looked Tony dead in the eye, he saw that at least one mystery had been solved.

"Huh," Tony said softly. "So you do care."

Loki swallowed, refusing to reply. Or maybe he couldn't. There was more than a trick of the light pooling in his green eyes, and it wasn't the fading echo of magic. Reaching up, Tony covered the hands on his chest with his own, squeezing them hard.

"Don't stick around for it. Just...do that for me, will you? Go somewhere. Throw snowballs on Jotunheim. Get trashed with Doom and-and blow up the moon. Take your brother and destroy a small island together." Something hot and hard was lodged in Tony's throat, and he couldn't get it out. "Don't watch me die."

Loki's jaw tightened, his eyes dropping to their hands. Tony squeezed again, harder this time, and felt the fingers under his flex and slide away from his skin.

"I have no plans to do any such thing," Loki said finally. There was a strange resolve in his eyes. "But you will kiss me goodbye all the same. It seems I have far to travel, and little time to do it."

Tony was about to ask what he meant when Loki reached up to cradle his face between long-fingered hands. It was a strangely tender gesture, and not one Tony could ever remember being the recipient of from him. Bewilderment dissolved the words on his tongue as Loki's eyes ran over his face, his fingers following in light, cool paths. And then, as their eyes met, it hit him in a rush of grief that clutched hard at his chest, pulling in a way the arc reactor had never done.

Tony was going to _miss_ him.

The kiss was no goodbye. At least, their desperate clash of lips and tongue and the fingers pressing hard lines into his skin didn't feel like any goodbye kiss Tony had ever gotten. Threading his fingers up into long black hair he stretched up into the kiss, tasting bitter salt and warmth on Loki's lips as he opened his mouth, welcoming the urgent press of his tongue as it delved deep inside. He wanted to remember this, for as long as he could.

"Don't die until I have returned," Loki said against his mouth, the words breathed softly there. "Two weeks, Stark. Give me that."

"I don't think I have that long," Tony admitted, his fingers sifting through the soft strands of hair at the nape of Loki's neck. "It's pretty bad."

"Make it happen. You've done the impossible before."

Tony could have asked what Loki planned to do, tried to pry the information from behind his teeth or denied that he could do anything at all. But they knew each other. If nothing else, Loki was a survivor, just like him. Tony was so far out of options he could put his blind faith in him, just this once.

"Okay," he replied simply. "Okay. Until I see you again. Make it worth my while, Laufeyson."

Loki didn't respond to that; instead his form simply washed out into faint translucence, fading away in Tony's grip entirely. It was no goodbye, and somehow that bolstered Tony's resolve a little. He turned to the holographic workstation.

"Jarvis, what do you think? Am I gonna make it?"

Jarvis was quick to speak his mind.

"_Probability scenarios of success unable to be completed. My apologies, sir. I cannot conclude any outcome with Mr Laufeyson added to the criteria. He is a wildcard in all scenarios._"

Tony just smiled. For the first time in weeks, it actually felt real.

"I guess that's good enough for me."


End file.
